My Writing

Monday, August 20, 2012

If you're feeling spiritless

If you're feeling spiritless, let me tell you, this blog post right here, when you get done reading it, I really think if you read it through, it won't make you feel any better.


Spiritless
Part of Speech:adjective
Definition:depressed
Synonyms:apatheticblah*, blue*, brokencast down,
dejecteddespondentdisconsolatedispirited,
dopey, downdown in the dumps, down in the
mouth, downcast, downhearted, draggy, drippy,
droopy, dullenervatedflat tire, flat*,inanimate
indifferentlackadaisicallackluster,languid
languishing, languorous, lifelesslimp,listlesslow
melancholic, melancholymopy,slothful, subdued
submissivetametorpid,unconcernedunenthusiastic, 
unmoved, zero*
Antonyms:energetichappylivelyspiriteduplifted



I feel better when I do things.

I've been writing things for a novel. So far it feels like throat-clearing, prologue stuff.


Things I wrote that probably won't actually be in the novel:

This novel could be described as "like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, but no stroke." And the protagonist is just some twenty-five-year-old shithead.  


                              "Marco."

The little boy with the special-edition DVD with director's commentary. The little boy with favorite sections of the Sunday New York Times

My last day at the nonprofit we went bowling. It was fun enough, I guess, in a bleak, shitty sort of way.



Houellebecq
I'm almost finished reading The Possibility of an Island by Michel Houellebecq. It conveys a very depressing worldview, just like all of his books.
"I have told you already I do not give a single fuck."

I'm intrigued by his prose style, how he does paragraphs; there are a lot of semicolons, but sometimes he uses commas instead, he creates run-ons. His writing feels liberated, free, but purposeful.

There was a small, maybe 2-paragraph section on a page that recounts the narrator finding his dog dead in a snowbank or something following the suicide of his lover (this dog had been the one nice thing in his life following the suicide), and it was such a great piece of writing all on its own, that one little section; I read it  again, but slowly.

Next I'm going to read The Key and Diary of a Mad Old Man by Junichiro Tanizaki. Henry Miller was into Tanizaki, he mentions him in this sweet footage of him in a bathrobe explaining all the stuff on the walls of his bathroom in Big Sur.


Looking at Artists' Lives on Wikipedia
Oscar Wilde was editor of The Woman's World magazine for a while--I read about it here--it was fairly progressive/highbrow--he had an office and an assistant editor--he'd come and go as he pleased--he wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray and several famous essays during that time, composed when he'd leave his office to go out to a cafe.
"Swaggie, lol..."

I love Marcel Duchamp's final artwork, Étant donnés. His life is interesting to me, Duchamp. "The illuminating gas."



Just typed up a paragraph entitled "My life story" and deleted it. 

Just got asked to be interviewed in a kitchen for a new web TV show. 

A thing by me is in the next Shabby Doll House. It's called "Fantasy."

I'm in the process of conducting interviews with Heiko Julién and with Richard Chiem.

I think it'd be fun if we got a big ridiculous comment section going somewhere, like on a Melissa Broder HTMLGIANT post or something. Or not.

Rachel and I watched this documentary called The Bridge about people jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Was kind of depressing but not as depressing as I anticipated. People jump off the Golden Gate Bridge a lot, it is the #1 suicide spot, I believe. Most people die instantly on impact.

9 comments:

  1. No, I think I feel a little more spirited. I like posts that are like collections of sentences. Good thinking.

    That movie, The Bridge, though, that made me feel pretty bad. I like it when the guy is walking down the sidewalk and he sees a jumper and wrestles him back over the rail.

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  2. Also doesn't it seem like instead of posting directly on blogs (even Broder posts), people prefer leaving a comment on the Facebook post where they learned about the blog post?

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  3. MH's most recent book, THE MAP AND THE TERRITORY, is not as bleak as the others, at least the protagonist is not as bleak, and it is still really good. I always wouldn't characterize the protagonists in WHATEVER, ELEMENTARY PARTICLES, and POSSIBILITY OF AN ISLAND as bleak, necessarily, but they are definitely assholes, usually misogynistic, and depressive, so yeah i guess they are bleak.

    I look forward to your novel.

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  4. I enjoyed The Bridge because it seemed as inspiring as it was depressing, if not more the former than the latter. I watched it while I was in seventh or eighth grade, and by now my personal conception of suicide has become pretty bleak, so maybe the movie doesn't have much of a "lasting effect," but it is interesting.

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  5. Adam R --- yeah, it is p depressing. ppl do comment more on fb sometimes. fb seems to be the best place to put anything if you want the most ppl to see it

    Andrew---- cool, i want to read that one once it's in paperback, if it isn't already. thanks about my novel, look forward to seeing your stuff also

    Mat---- yeah. i could see a lot of different reactions to it. i found it interesting idk. don't plath, Matt..

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  6. Good luck with the novel, looking forward to reading that…

    I still haven’t read any Houellebecq but I’m gonna add Posibility of an Island to the list, thanks for the tip…Tanizaki is really cool, I’ve only read “7 Japanese Tales” but he’s got this tiny little story called “Terror” that is one of my very super favorites…I’m gonna add Mad Old Man to the list too, sweet…

    Yeah, that Bridge doc is v sad.

    Nice post, I love reading stuff like this…

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  7. Chris, cool, i'm glad man. i enjoy your blog and what you're doing with "neato mosquito" tumblr. i'd maybe recommend some earlier Houellebecq over "the possibility," like "the elementary particles" or "platform." his first, translated as "whatever," is very funny imo, like a very dark office comedy

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  8. i liked the bridge, watched it a couple days ago after watching a jonestown documentary

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